The popularity of restaurants and food stands which rotate meat on some kind of rotisserie probably extends to every country in the world. Some meat is roasted Greek-style, on a single vertical skewer which rotates about its vertical axis alongside a vertical wall of charcoal or gas-fired ceramic radiating embers. These units ordinarily skewer a multiplicity of layers of meat which are then shaved off so that the meat continually rotates to expose fresh meat for brazing as the mass of meat continues to become reduced in diameter as it is shaved further and further.
Another kind of rotating rotisserie/barbecue device is generally used to cook whole chickens, but can be used to cook other kinds of meat or parts of chickens as well. Typically this unit is formed of a pair of spaced hubs having spokes which carry spits between their ends, from one hub member to the next, with the hubs rotating so that the spits, which are generally 6 or 8 in number, sequentially pass slowly across the face of a vertical charcoal wall or other barbecue element. This is the type of barbecue described in the instant disclosure. As the spits pass across the face of the barbecue, some rotate as well as executing their orbiting motion, but most do not. The ones that do not, create areas of overcooking and undercooking in the chickens, and the ones that do rotate are often rather inflexible in their design, meaning that they will always rotate when they orbit. Or, they may be prone to clogging and malfunction due to the hot and often dirty environment in which they operate.
There is a need for a simple, sure mechanism for rotating and simultaneously orbiting barbecue spits which simultaneously provides the flexibility to cause rotation without orbiting as well as with orbiting, and to make possible reverse-orbiting of the spits.